Digging Up Our Past

Another Ancient Sarcophagus Unearthed in Gianyar.

Click Image to Enlarge

(2/28/2009)

Intensive digging of clay fields for the production of building bricks in the fields of the Keramas village in Gianyar, Bali is yielding an unexpected harvest of ancient sarcophagi that affirms Bali's advanced state of human settlement dating back at least 3 millennia. As reported on balidiscovery.com [See: Uncovering Bali's Ancient Past ] the discovery of the twelfth ancient stone burial urn in the fields near Blahbatuh on January 12, 2009, was seen by archaeologists as proof of Bali's inhabitation by an advanced society centuries before the dawn of the Christian era.

Sarcophagi Popping Up Like Fungi

On Sunday, February 1, 2009, the thirteenth stone coffin was unearthed only 7 meters from the similar discovery made nearly three weeks before. The latest object is 60 centimetres long and 57 centimetres high.

Drs. Made Swastika, a researcher form the Bali Archaeology Department confirmed that the Keramas area in the Gianyar regency was a popular human settlement area 2,000 – 3,000 years ago as proven by the continuing discovery of burial objects and the ruins of religious sites found in the area dating from the megalithic era.

Drs. Swastika told the press that the people who lived in these areas at that time lack writing instruments but, nonetheless, had already developed sophisticated burial rituals that dictated the use of elaborate sarcophagi seen as a means of guaranteeing safe conduct to the after-life. Swastika also said that the ideology of these ancient peoples perceived an after-life that mirrored their mortal existence.

The thirteen burial urns are now part of the collection of the Prehistoric Museum in Bedulu (Museum Prubakala Bedulu).